


Disco Inferno

by DarkwingJones



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Mentioned Danarius and all the ick that comes with the slime basket, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5888647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkwingJones/pseuds/DarkwingJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris is laid flat by Venatori mages on the Storm Coast, but the Inquisition makes a timely appearance and saves his life. Now he comes face to face with a stark reminder of his past, and he has to think on his feet if he's to survive the uncertain future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where The Sun Don't Shine

**Author's Note:**

> Disco Inferno; I learn through means of hell.

His first thought was that everything was very soft. He'd become accustomed to sleeping against the trunks of trees or even on the tops of mossy boulders, keeping well out of reach of the wildlife below. His time on the run had taught him the dangers of sleeping flush to the ground without a tent--a single snake slithering along one's inner thigh was all it took for a man to swear off it altogether. Still, this--whatever he was on--was not the ground, and what was above him was neither the sky nor the canopy of a tree. In fact, the material of this tent was a strange, dark red like the sands in the deserts near Tevinter, which immediately soured his mood. Fenris squinted in the dimness of the candle that was lit at his bedside, rolling his head to the side when he registered motion in his peripheral vision. An elf man--a mage, by the staff he held in arms that were loosely crossed and tucked into his sleeves--inclined his head in his direction, grey eyes glittering in the firelight.

"It is a relief to see you awake," said the man, his voice holding a lilt that reminded Fenris of a gentler version of Merril. This, along with the fact that he was seemingly alone with a mage and had been for some time, did nothing for his mood, but Fenris held his tongue, glaring at the man. The stranger only smiled gently, sliding his hands out of his sleeves to grasp his staff and head for the exit. "You have been asleep for several days," he continued, using his staff to brush aside the tent flap and show Fenris the murky light outside. "Dawn is not far off. You are welcome to join us for breakfast if you wish. Try not to move too quickly, my friend. I have healed as much as I could, but there may be lingering effects from the spells the Venatori used against you." So saying, the man ducked out of the tent, and Fenris could hear more voices outside, though faint.

Venatori. The word brought a bitter taste to his mouth, and Fenris closed his eyes as his memories slowly trickled back. He'd been hunting down slavers, as was his usual. He'd heard whispers that there was to be a large 'shipment' to be loaded up somewhere along the Storm Coast, and he'd gone to investigate. He'd expected Tevinter slavers. Perhaps a mage or two. He hadn't expected these 'Venatori', maleficarum who used some sort of red lyrium that made the markings on Fenris' skin burn just being near. It had been his fault for being distracted by the pain; he'd had worse, and the unease he'd felt during the fight was likely what had nearly gotten him killed. Beyond the first blow of a force spell, his memory turned a little muddy.

With a grunt, Fenris slowly sat up, taking stock of himself. He wasn't missing any limbs. In fact, he was entirely unmarred barring the obvious, and it was only the fierce ache in his bones and the sloshing tenderness of his head that made him second-guess moving any faster. His armour and greatsword were beside the bed and Fenris dressed slowly, calming himself as he sank into the familiar routine of tying plate to himself. He was in a camp with at least one mage, and he didn't relish the thought. As soon as he was dressed, Fenris stood and strapped his sword across his back, gritting his teeth against the protestations of his joints. By the time he pulled the tent flap aside and stepped outside, the sun had already crested the horizon, making the fog that was rolling in from the sea glitter as though diamond dust had fallen from the sky some time during the night. It was a view that Fenris would have indulged in, had he not been in the middle of a camp full of strangers.

"Fenris!"

Fenris blinked hard, startling at the familiar voice laughingly calling out to him. _"Varric?"_ he blurted, turning to watch the dwarf he'd met in Kirkwall approach him with a genuinely pleased grin on his beardless face.

"The one and only," Varric replied with a mock-bow, hand twirling in a little flourish.

Fenris found himself smiling down at the man, though it was brief and taut with his discomfort. "How small the world truly is," he muttered, firmly clasping Varric's arm when the dwarf offered it.

Varric chuckled. "You don't know the half of it. How've you been, Broody? You been doing okay since we did the whole Kirkwall thing? Wait. Don't tell me. You've been making the world a better place, one pile of Tevinter corpses at a time."

Fenris snorted and dropped his hand, crossing his arms. "And you? Don't tell me that you're here with Hawke." If Hawke was still making doe-eyes at that idiot mage, Fenris didn't want to be anywhere near them.

"I'm afraid not," Varric said with a put-upon sigh. "You know me, Fenris. I've always got to be ass-deep in trouble. Nah. I'm..." He gestured around the camp, and Fenris followed it with his eyes, watching a one-eyed Qunari man weave through camp and head for a large rock formation a little ways away. At Fenris' raised brow, Varric chuckled, almost self-deprecating. "I'm with the Inquisition now. You know. The people who patched up that big-ass hole in the sky."

"Ah," said Fenris, shifting his weight onto one hip. "The name does ring a few bells," he admitted, warily taking in the rest of the people who were slowly starting to mill about. "How did you end up here?"

"Do you want the long version or the short version?"

"The short version."

"I was sort of hauled in for questioning after Anders went pyromaniac on the Chantry in Kirkwall. I was close by when the Conclave blew sky high and demons started raining down on us. Met the Inquisitor before she became the Inquisitor. She was the Herald of Andraste, back then. Still is, I guess, with the glowing green thing on her hand, but everyone calls her the Inquisitor now."

Fenris blinked, and not for the first time, he wondered if his choice to purposefully stay out of the loop on everything unrelated to the slave trade had been a wise one. "The 'glowing green thing on her hand'?"

With a snort, Varric shrugged. "I don't know about this shit, Twinkletoes. I just write about it. You sticking around for breakfast?"

Fenris grunted, looking around the camp once more. "I might," he hedged, though his stomach protested loudly enough for Varric to outright laugh.

"Yeah, sure. I'll make sure they save some bacon for you."

Scoffing softly through his embarrassment, Fenris shook his head, though he smirked down at the dwarf. "You haven't changed."

"Neither have you," Varric shot back, flashing Fenris a winning grin. In an instant, however, it was gone, and Varric cleared his throat. "Hey. Listen. About the Inquisitor..."

Fenris cocked a brow. "What is it?" he asked with a frown, knowing full well the tone Varric used when he was trying not to step on his toes.

"She's--"

"Boss!"

The cry of alarm had both elf and dwarf whipping about to look, attention drawn to the Qunari man by the rocks. He was looking up along a long, golden rod of some sort, and as one, Varric and Fenris followed his gaze. A small--or comparatively small, near the hulking Qunari--figure was spinning and sliding down along that pole, and Fenris watched with fascination as the pole shrunk to the size of a staff once the figure's feet touched the ground. Not a mage staff, perhaps, but definitely enchanted. The woman--the Inquisitor, Fenris surmised--was clothed head to toe in black, little but her head and one hand exposed to the saltwater mist that licked along their bodies in the wind that drew her long, snow-white hair across her face as she looked up at the Qunari before her. Fenris' mouth went dry when he realised just what he was looking at: a very familiar slave 'uniform' from Tevinter.

"Nice trick, Boss," said the Qunari with a grin, chuckling softly. "Haven't seen someone work a pole like that since this one time back in Orlais. Maybe warn me next time, though. I thought I'd have to scrape you off the Coast after you pole-vaulted into the ground."

Whatever was said by the Inquisitor was lost to the sudden gale of wind that whipped through the camp, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as Fenris watched the woman's voluminous curls whip about her face and then away, revealing a stark white line of lyrium along the dark skin of her neck and a delicately pointed ear. There was a ringing in his ears that sounded almost like screaming, and Fenris barely had the time to register the fact that he hadn't been breathing before he lurched forward and emptied the contents of his stomach in front of the tent. It being empty, he brought up little more than harsh, burning bile, and he coughed raggedly as Varric awkwardly patted his back. He wanted to push the dwarf away--wanted to insist that he was fine--but the watery ache in his head had become a sharp, disorienting pain behind his eyes, and Fenris doubted that opening his mouth would do more than make him retch, at the moment.

Danarius. Even years dead, the bastard still had an influence in his life. Of course he did.

A murmur that he couldn't parse was all the warning he got before Fenris felt a warm hand press against his brow, warm against the sudden, sickly chill brought on by his sickness. He felt a tingling along his markings that wasn't all that unpleasant, all things considered, and it was with a start that he realised that he was being healed. Fenris jerked away from the touch and straightened with a scowl, expecting to see the bald elf of before and seeing instead a tiny half-elf girl with brilliant silver eyes that made his breath catch. Before he could comment, she turned and ran away, and he watched her latch onto the Inquisitor's leg.

The woman in question had already hooked her staff to her back as a mage would, and thus easily plucked the child up and settled her upon her hip. She continued her approach and stroked the girl's back gently, and it was only when she was a few metres away that she lifted her gaze from the child tucked beneath her chin to Fenris, pinning him with shockingly violet eyes. Fenris lifted his chin under her scrutiny, though it lasted only a moment before she looked back down at her charge, stroking her dark hair and murmuring, "Tell Solas to make Fenris porridge. Can you do that for _Mammam?"_

The casual use of Tevene rankled Fenris, but he watched the child--the Inquisitor's daughter--nod and quietly repeat, "Porridge for Fenris."

"That's my girl," the Inquisitor replied with a smile, brushing a kiss to the girl's brow and setting her down. The child was off like a shot, barreling through camp and nearly knocking over the elf man of before when she crashed into his legs. Beside Fenris, the Inquisitor chuckled, and they both turned back to the other as one. "I apologise for Idunna. She does not stand idly by when others are suffering."

Fenris grunted acknowledgment. "A noble trait in one so young."

The Inquisitor smiled, though like his own, it was small and tired at the edges. "I imagine you must have questions. It is an honour to finally meet the man that Danarius spoke so highly of."

His stomach lurched, but nothing came of it. Out of the corner of his eye, Fenris watched Varric smoothly bow out of this conversation, though to Fenris, the man may as well have whistled innocently as he ducked out of the responsibility to inform Fenris of anything at all. Typical. Fenris scowled. "So your markings--"

"--are his doing," the Inquisitor confirmed, inclining her head and looking up at the sky as the first raindrops of the day pattered against Fenris' armour. "I suppose it would be prudent to inform you now, before you breakfast and risk bringing it up again, that my daughter shares his blood."

Fenris all but choked on his tongue, though he supposed that he shouldn't be too surprised. Dark hair, silver eyes--she was practically Danarius in miniature, and though part of him knew that it was unfair to compare him against a child that looked to be no more than five, he couldn't tamp down the immediate revulsion that he felt toward her, and it must have shown in his expression, for the Inquisitor's eyes hardened.

"If you hurt her in any way," she murmured, lifting a hand when Fenris attempted to burst in outrage, "I _will_ kill you. She is his by blood alone, but she is not Danarius. You remember what he was like. You must imagine the circumstances of her birth."

Fenris could, and all too easily. He fought against the creeping shudder he felt crawling up his spine, narrowing his eyes at the woman before him as the lyrium stirred in his skin. "I would not harm a child, even if she _is_ Danarius' _spawn_."

He really must have been ill, he reasoned, for him not to have been able to block the kick that came from the Inquisitor, her boot landing square in his stomach and making him topple over backwards back into the tent. He was a little more prepared for what came next, however, and grappled with the woman as she all but pounced on him, lyrium lighting up the tent from both of their bodies. He roared his fury and she bared her teeth above him, legs tangling with his as they both fought for the upper hand. "You will _not_ address her as such," she snarled, slamming Fenris' wrists down against the rugs that made up the floor of the tent. Fenris writhed wildly, but the woman fought dirty, and he had to blink the stars from his vision when one of her knees struck a particularly delicate area of his person. "I have taken great pains to make certain that her sire's legacy does not mar her future," she was saying above him, long hair tickling his jaw and throat. "You will not lay the sins of the father at the child's feet."

"She is a _mage_ , just as Danarius was," Fenris snarled beneath her, fighting for purchase against the woman. "What guarantee do you have that she will not become a maleficar just as he was? That she will not run to Tevinter at the first opportunity to claim her birthright and indulge in a few slav--" It was the wrong thing to say. Fenris knew this the moment he saw the lyrium markings on her flesh flash brighter, which was all the warning he got before the Inquisitor headbutted him right in the face. Fenris grunted sharply and turned his head to spit blood onto the rug, though he was sure that his nose was doing a much more thorough job of staining the thing red.

"You are a vile, despicable man," the Inquisitor hissed, eyes narrowed dangerously. "If you so much as _breathe_ the wrong way in her general direction, I will end you. There will be no quick death, no phasing hand to rip out your heart. I will tear you limb from limb and see that you scream for every drop of blood that stains the ground. Do you understand me?"

Fenris couldn't help but feel a begrudging sort of respect for the woman, somewhere deep beneath his anger. She was entirely serious, and he could feel it in the marrow of his bones. She would kill him for harming her daughter or die trying. It was a feeling Fenris knew all too well, having traveled with Hawke and company. At length, he nodded, all but literally biting his tongue to keep himself from spewing more of the vitriol he felt bubbling in his chest. The blow to the head had--ironically--cleared his mind, and he knew that he was in the wrong. He looked away from the intensity of her gaze under the pretense of clearing his mouth of more blood, though he was quick to look back up at her. "I... apologise," he said, almost grimacing around the words. "It was wrong to transfer my hatred for Danarius onto your... child."

The Inquisitor lifted a brow, settling lightly against Fenris' lap. "Idunna."

"Idunna," Fenris amended, looking down along the length of their bodies and then back up into those violet eyes. "And what may I call you?"

"My name is Aella," the Inquisitor revealed, sitting back against Fenris' thighs and releasing his wrists.

It was all the opportunity that he needed. In the span of a blink, Fenris freed a leg and wrapped it around the Inquisitor's hips, using his momentum and a hand at her shoulder to wrest control from her and slam her down against the rug beneath him. She must have expected this turn of events, for she made no noise save a soft breath when he lay his weight against her chest.

"Satisfied?" she murmured as he wrapped his fingers around her wrists, long white lashes flickering briefly over her eerily-coloured eyes when his blood dripped onto her cheek.

Fenris snorted, unintentionally spraying the woman's face with more blood. He grimaced and wiped his nose along the bare skin of his arm, though he knew he was only delaying the inevitable. "I still have many questions."

"I may have many answers," Aella placidly returned, not seeming to mind the blood trickling down toward her hairline.

Chuckling despite himself, Fenris shook his head. "You are a very strange woman," he said, pulling away just enough to allow Aella to shift until the staff at her back wasn't jabbing into her shoulder blade.

"Am I?" prompted the Inquisitor around a laugh of her own, wiggling the fingers of her left hand so that his attention was drawn to the glowing green... thing... that cut across her palm. "I've been led to believe that I am one of a kind."

Fenris eyed the mark warily. "What _is_ that?"

Beneath him, Aella shrugged. "I don't quite know. I was in the Conclave when it exploded last year. They say I fell from a Fade rift and fell unconscious, and that there was a woman behind me, pushing me through to safety. It is believed that she was Andraste, and that my survival was Andraste's will. They call me the Herald of Andraste for this mark, and for its power to close the rifts that have opened throughout Thedas since the Breach appeared in the sky."

"And do you believe that?" Fenris asked, not bothering to mask his disbelief.

Aella hesitated. "I don't know," she quietly repeated, briefly looking toward the glow on her palm. "I want to. I want to believe that the Maker and his Bride exist."

Fenris grunted understanding. Faith was something he had struggled with from time to time over the years since he'd gained his freedom, and he wouldn't mock another ex-slave for having the same doubts. He jolted when the fabric of the tent moved behind him, looking over his shoulder at the one-eyed Qunari who was poking his head in.

 _"Whoa,"_ said the man in his deep voice, looking between Fenris and the Inquisitor. "Am I... interrupting something, Boss?"

"Not at all," Aella easily replied, though Fenris could feel heat crawling up his neck as he let the woman up and knelt beside her on the rug. "Did you need something, Bull?"

The Qunari--Bull, apparently, which Fenris found very odd--proffered two steaming bowls. "Breakfast delivery for you and your, uh. Friend, here." When Aella took the bowls with a quiet word of thanks, Bull gestured to his face. "Hey, Boss. You got a little something..."

Aella laughed and set the bowls down, standing up and shoving Bull out of the tent as she stepped out with him. "Where's Idunna?" Fenris heard her ask, looking down at the bowls in question. Both of them had fried eggs for eyes and bacon for mouths. One was smiling and the other was scowling with strips of bacon used for furrowed brows, and Fenris wondered if that had been Varric's influence. Likely. Keeping an ear to the conversation outside, Fenris searched for a cloth to stop the bleeding, gingerly touching his broken lip and bruising nose.

Huh. And they called him hard-headed. At least she hadn't knocked a tooth out; she'd certainly hit him hard enough. Small mercies, he suspected. He found a cloth and a small bowl of water beside the bed he'd woken upon, briefly wondering if he'd come down with fever in the time he was unconscious. Regardless, he washed his face and arm of blood, pinching his nose closed and tipping his head forward. A scant few minutes later, he heard giggling coming from outside the tent, turning in time to see the Inquisitor and her daughter come running inside, soaked to the bone and shaking the droplets of rain off like dogs.

Fenris watched the two with no small amount of interest; he'd never given much thought to having a family, after the incident with Varania. Aella grabbed a towel from the chest at the foot of the bed and draped it over her daughter's head, crouching before the child with a warm smile that stirred envy in Fenris' chest. He looked away as the pair sat to enjoy their breakfast, Idunna on Aella's lap. He found himself thinking that Idunna was rather mild-mannered, for the offspring of a man just a shade away from being an abomination. (No pun intended.)

"Did you see the happy face?" she was asking, almost breathless with excitement. "I made it! Unc'a Varric did Fenrises's. He made it look mean, cos--" Ah, that little noise. Spotted him lurking over yonder, did she? Idunna lowered her voice, though her whispering was loud in the quiet of the tent when she asked, "Is he mean, _Mammam?"_

"Who, Fenris?" Aella replied in patient tones, not bothering to whisper. "I don't think so. He's just been a bit ill, is all. You're not too chipper when you're sick, are you?"

"Nuh-uh," Idunna chirped, though it was slightly muffled.

Aella clucked her tongue. "Don't speak with your mouth full, my love. It's not polite." Idunna made an apologetic noise through her mouthful of eggs and porridge, and Aella laughed. "Say hello properly," she murmured, and Fenris heard the bowls clatter as Aella moved them away. He turned as the little girl stood and straightened the skirt of her dress, and for the first time, he looked past the resemblance to her father. Though she bore Danarius' hair and eye colours, that was where the similarities ended. Most importantly, the aforementioned eyes held a warmth and curiosity that Danarius' had never entertained, and her skin was a shade somewhere between either parent. In all other things, Idunna seemed a perfect miniature of her mother, from the softness of her cheeks to the hyperpigmentation of her bow-shaped lips. When she looked up at him, with the ruffles of her dress and the fabric rose in the band holding her curls away from her face, Fenris was struck by just how like a doll the child looked.

Children, he decided, could be very unsettling indeed.

"Did it hurt?" Idunna asked at length, cocking her head in a way that made her look more like a cocker spaniel than a child. "When _Mammam_ took it out?"

Fenris frowned down at the child. "What?" he blurted, entirely bewildered. He looked behind Idunna at Aella, but the woman looked just as baffled as he felt, reaching for a water skin and pulling the cork.

"Unc'a Varris said you had a stick up your nose," Idunna replied, clasping her hands politely behind her back and rocking onto the balls of her feet, "and now it's all puffed like someone was fiddled with it, so is it gone?"

Fenris had never seen a spit-take so impressive.

Aella coughed violently, caught between laughing and making a noise of distress. "Idunna."

Idunna hurried back to her mother, brows puckered and tiny hands clapping the Inquisitor upon the back. "You couldn't take out the stick? Is that why his nose looks bad?"

" _Idunna_."

Fenris couldn't decide whether to be angry or laugh. As it was, he scoffed against the cloth he held to his face and shook his head, closing the distance between them to drop onto the tent floor in front of his bowl. "No, I don't have a stick up my nose," he said as he pulled the porridge close, glad that the bowl still felt warm to the touch. Idunna perked up at his words, smiling in a way that Fenris hadn't seen aimed at him since... Well, since the last time he saw Hawke. This was pure delight, and Fenris had just as much of an idea of what to do with it as he usually did. (That is to say, none.)

"My _mammam_ helped you get it, didn't she?" asked Idunna, crawling onto her mother's lap and snuggling up against the woman's chin. " _Mammam_ helps loads'a people. Don't you, _Mammam_?"

Aella chuckled softly, winding her arms around her daughter. "Here and there," she demurred, flushing a gentle shade of pink in the face of Idunna's obvious pride.

Pride that Fenris didn't particularly feel like poking holes in, especially in the presence of the woman who'd nearly made him swallow his own teeth. "Yes," he said at length, pulling the cloth from his face when he was sure he wasn't going to pour more blood into his food. "Your mother helped me."

Aella startled, blinking across at Fenris, but Idunna only beamed, clapping happily. "She _did!_ I told Unc'a Varric you could do it, but he laughed, but you did! I'm gonna tell him after breakfast."

Making a choked noise, Aella gently clasped her daughter's hands in her own. "I'd rather you didn't, my love," said the Inquisitor, smiling down at the crestfallen girl. "This was something... private. Let Uncle Varric notice on his own. You know he likes doing that. You can heal Fenris' nose after breakfast instead, mm?"

At this, Idunna looked appeased. "Yes, _Mammam_ ," she peeped, twisting about to take up their own porridge bowl and offer her mother a spoonful.

Aella took it without question, smiling around her mouthful and touching noses with the little girl on her lap. When Idunna giggled and turned to take her own spoonful of food, Aella's eyes met Fenris' across the way, and she smiled warmly, mouthing, 'Thank you.'

Fenris nodded almost imperceptibly, looking away from the Inquisitor's unnerving violet eyes. This had certainly been quite the morning, he mused as he ate. He woke up, threw up, squared up, and now he was filling up in a tent in the middle of the Storm Coast, rain slapping down against the oiled fabric and creating a soothing background thrum as they ate. Not for the first time in his life, Fenris wondered just what he'd gotten himself into

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forever cursing DA:I's lack of good feminine hairstyles, _sigh._ Please imagine her with long, curly hair.  
>   
>   
> 


	2. Nonsense and Sensibility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally forgot to post this. It's been written for weeks. WHOOPS.

He had heard Varric call him oblivious as a rock in a rainstorm, but Fenris couldn't fathom what that looked like until he watched Aella move amongst her people. She moved like a shade, silent and wraith-like in the same way that Danarius had trained him to move, but she stopped at every group to greet them, eliciting pleased smiles from more familiar soldiers and flustered stuttering from the newer recruits. He was close enough to eavesdrop on a handful of these visits, and he noted that those she didn't greet by name, Aella inquired after, greeting them just as warmly as the older troops. The result was something like adding green wood to a fire, and Fenris watched the sparks Aella left in her wake catch and spread through the camp until the soldiers were indulging in banter and going about their tasks with more enthusiasm than before. She didn't seem to notice the effect she had, moving from group to lone soldier to friend like a scarf on the wind. She seemed to change with every companion she spoke to, laughing with Varric, teasing the Iron Bull, and inclining her head when greeting Solas.

The lattermost, Fenris noted, allowed his gaze to linger upon the Inquisitor after she had excused herself, a tight sort of longing in his eyes. In the next moment, he turned his head and it was gone, replaced by an odd sort of fire in the man's eyes that made the pit of Fenris' stomach feel cold. He had seen that look before, in Anders' eyes in the days leading up to the destruction of the Chantry at Kirkwall. Another mage with a hidden agenda. _Wonderful_. Fenris resolved to keep an eye on the idiot, lest he get them all killed.

They were packed and ready to leave by midday, though it could have been near dusk, for all the light that the sheets of rain allowed them. Fenris was given an oiled cloak and a strong, sturdy-looking horse--a tobiano mare by the name of Ricki (which was short for Rickety, he was told, and was not at all comforted). He stroked the horse's soft white mane before he hauled himself up onto the saddle, pausing as he looked down at the beast. "Uh. Shoo," he muttered, tentatively flicking the reins against the mare's neck. The horse flicked her ears right back at him, but otherwise did nothing.

Right.

Fenris surreptitiously looked around, trying to gauge just what it was that the others were doing to convince their horses to move. Some clicked their tongues. Others murmured quietly. Still others used what Fenris thought was something near blood magic, silently moving their mounts to join the ranks of those filing after the carts. He was about to slide off of the saddle when a gloved hand took the reins and tugged them gently from his grasp, bringing them up and over his horse's head. He looked aside (and up) at Aella, whom had apparently chosen a hart as her steed. It was several hands taller than his own mount, and mercifully so; it meant that its antlers didn't run the risk of accidentally gouging Ricki's eyes out or worse.

Fenris held onto the horse's saddle with his thighs as she began to move, which was about the only thing he was good at. Danarius had never allowed him to mount his own horse, always insisting that Fenris ride with him. As such, he'd never truly learned how to ride, and--until now--he hadn't thought he would ever have use for the skill. "Thank you," he said after a beat, earning himself a smile from the Inquisitor.

"Not a problem," she replied, carefully tying Ricki to her stag's saddle. "I fell off my first horse. Broke my shoulder in two places."

Fenris grimaced, warily eyeing the beast she now sat astride. "That is not a horse you ride."

"No," Aella amiably returned, smiling over her shoulder at Fenris once more. "He's a Tirashan Swiftwind, and his name is Enlil."

Fenris nodded in acknowledgment of her words, gaze drawn to the flash of gold at her thigh. Apparently, the staff she bore could shrink even smaller, as she wore it now at her belt at what couldn't have been more than two hand-lengths; Fenris wondered just how small and large it could grow. Could it grow forever? Could she risk shrinking it out of existence? These questions and more floated through his mind, though when Fenris opened his mouth, he found himself asking, "Where is the child?"

He could have kicked himself for the dangerous flicker of blue-white along the Inquisitor's skin; his tone had not been the epitome of neutrality.

" _Idunna_ ," she replied in clipped tones, "is with my most trusted scout. I never ride with my daughter. When trouble arises, I must ride into the thick of it. I refuse to place her in harm's way."

"I see," said Fenris, shifting beneath his cloak and watching the rainwater sluice off his foot. "I meant nothing by the question."

After a tense beat of silence, Aella sighed. "You must have others. Ask them."

Fenris thought for a moment. There were many things he wanted to know, and he had no inkling of where to begin. Best to start with one of the most obvious, then. "You and I are similar in appearance."

Aella grunted her amusement. "Danarius told me that the ritual shocked the colour out of my hair. It was black, once, or so I was told." The Inquisitor glanced over her shoulder at him--more specifically, at his eyebrows--and added, "Yours was black as well?"

"All things point to that being the case."

Aella nodded once and looked away. "Danarius said that when he made you, the procedure was in its infancy. That is why parts of your hair remained their original colour. I was his third attempt. The second did not survive."

Fenris felt a muscle in his jaw jump, so tightly did he clench it. In that moment, he almost wished that they hadn't done away with Quentin; he could have used the man's necromancy to bring Danarius back so that he could kill him again. "And?"

The Inquisitor sighed, keeping her gaze forward. "And it hurt. You know that. He later told me that the only reason that he didn't penetrate the bone was because the marrow was too prone to infection, and he'd 'learned from his mistake'."

Beside her, Fenris jolted, head whipping up so quickly that he felt a muscle in his neck twinge in protest. "The bone?"

Seeing the movement out of the corner of her eye, Aella looked down at Fenris, lips pursed. "Yes. I have lyrium etched onto the surface of my bones. It--Fenris?"

His breaths were rattling. His stomach, roiling. Lyrium, to the bone? He couldn't even imagine it. No. That was a lie. He could. His mind just refused to allow him to, vehemently rejecting any and all thoughts of it in a desperate attempt at self-preservation. That Danarius had taken two more after him, killing one and doing this to the other... What had he done? Self-loathing rolled up inside of him like a cresting wave, and he was almost too far gone to react when he felt water washing over his face. Fenris jerked away from Aella's hand by instinct, gaze darting about.

They'd stopped moving and she'd pushed back the hood of his cloak, cold rainwater shocking him back from the brink of being sick for the second time that day. It took only seconds for his hair to be plastered to his skin, lashes dripping whenever he blinked. He looked up at Aella, wild-eyed and blanched, croaking, "I am so... sorry."

Aella's concern for him--concern he could clearly see upon her face--only deepened. "What? Fenris--"

"If I had never run... If I had stayed with Danarius--"

"Hush," said Aella, barely above the hiss of the rain around them, and Fenris twitched when her hand cupped the back of his head. "If you had stayed, then you would never have been free. You couldn't have known, Fenris. He would have done this regardless, I think. Why else would he have hunted you when he had me? He would have wanted a matching set. Perhaps bred us to see if the lyrium would pass onto our children."

Fenris balked at the idea, horror flashing in his eyes. He blinked against the onslaught of rain upon his face, the lyrium in his neck thrumming oddly at the proximity of the lyrium in Aella's arm. Fenris looked away, reaching up to tug his hood back over his head and forcing Aella to withdraw her touch. He took a moment to collect himself, then said, "I see that you keep with a mage. After everything you've seen, you would--"

"Yes," Aella cut in, turning back around in her saddle and urging Enlil and Ricki into motion again.

Fenris frowned. "Why? Is it because your daughter is a mage?"

The Inquisitor shrugged. "In part," she said. "A very small--albeit personal--part."

Lifting his brows, Fenris asked, "And the rest?"

Aella cocked a brow down at him. "Why should mages not be free to live as all others?"

"You of all people should know why," he said, frowning. "They are dangerous. I have seen them fall victim to demons outside of Tevinter, in Kirkwall."

"I know of what happened in Kirkwall," Aella quietly replied. "Varric was not sparing with the details. When we found you, I asked to hear it all. He kindly agreed. I pity the mage Orsino. I would have done the same, were I in his position."

"You _what?"_ Fenris blurted, voice rising as he twitched away from the Inquisitor's side. "He used _blood magic_ to summon the corpses of his peers and turned into an abomination the likes of which we'd never seen. You would have done the same?"

"Yes." Aella looked down and along at Fenris, unflinchingly meeting his gaze. "You didn't ask for your markings, but you have used them, when you have been in danger. When your life has been at stake. In the name of vengeance and in desperation, you have called upon the power you were given. No mage asked to be born with magic. Why would you condemn them when you yourself have done the same?"

Fenris scowled, hackles rising. "I am not capable of becoming an abomination. I would not kill innocents in the name of power."

"And neither would they, most of them," Aella returned, looking forward and at the backs of her troops. Some rode with staffs tucked against their backs, and she seemed as at ease in their company as any other. "And who are you to judge innocence? You killed your sister. True, she tried to turn you in to Danarius. Was it easy to kill her? A woman you barely remembered? I wager it was the same for her. Given the choice between keeping safe a man she'd never truly known and earning the power to never be enslaved again... It was simple."

"How dare you?" Fenris hissed, reaching out to undo the knot of Ricki's reins.

Aella's hand darted out to grab his wrist, pulling his hand away from Enlil's saddle as both their markings flared, the lyrium humming along Fenris' skin in a way it had never done before. The Inquisitor's eyes blazed down at Fenris in an almost perfect mirror image to his own, and she growled, "I dare because I am not a _hypocrite_ , as you seem to be. I _dare_ ," she added, tossing Fenris' hand aside, "because I am not simple enough to believe that the only _valid_ form of suffering is my own."

She may as well have slammed her head into his face all over again. Certainly, he and Hawke had had their disagreements, and the idiot mage and he had always had several points of contention, but no one had ever thrown his actions in his face this way before. Hawke was his friend. Anders attempted to tone down the animosity for Hawke's sake. It wasn't as though Anders had never touched upon the subject of hypocrisy, but it was Anders. A mage, and one always prattling on about the supposed injustices that came with it.

But Anders had never been a slave. He had never had lyrium burned into him. He had never had to lie beneath a man who called himself his master and pretend to like it. He couldn't comprehend how Aella could be so... What? Foolish? Naive? Open-minded? Maker knew what.

Suffice to say that the remainder of their journey to Skyhold was a quiet one.


	3. Undesirables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every fuckin' time I decide to write a thing, I get horrendously ill for months at a time. Fuck you, body. I do what I want.

Skyhold lived up to its name in every language ever conceived--it was a fortress that cupped the sky, and Fenris could not imagine a higher point in all of Thedas. A number of people awaited their arrival at the gates as they crossed the bridge over the chasm toward Skyhold, and Idunna--now sat with her mother on Enlil's saddle--wriggled impatiently in an attempt to see over the hart's antlers. Aella chuckled and tucked the girl against her, murmuring, "Be still, my sweet one. You will see him in moments."

"Do you see him, _Mammam_?" asked Idunna, tipping her head back to look up at her mother. "Is he there?"

"I see him," Aella said through a giggle, causing Idunna to beam and bounce upon Enlil's saddle.

Curious, Fenris scanned the people at the gates, squinting against the sunlight. There were several men among them, but he could see no children Idunna's age. He resigned himself to waiting for the inevitable and watched as their greeters parted to allow them into the fortress proper, trickling in along with the Inquisitor's forces. Fenris had never seen so many people willing to help one another, and so watched in quiet fascination as stiff riders were helped off of their saddles and the residents of the fortress wove between horses to begin unloading carts, the buzz of amicable conversation starting to thrum between them like bees' wings.

"Welcome home," said a voice between Ricki and Enlil, and Fenris nearly jumped out of his skin as he looked down at what appeared to be a battered brimmed hat that had developed the power of speech.

"Columba!" cooed Idunna, reaching out toward the man--boy?--that had seemingly materialised between their mounts.

"Hello, Cole," Aella murmured with a smile, watching as the boy carefully lifted Idunna from the saddle and set her on the ground before him.

"Inquisitor," was the quiet reply.

"I tried to ask you to come with us," said Idunna, hands clasped around one of Cole's and tugging it for attention, "but I couldn't find you anywhere! Were you in the Between again?"

"Yes," Cole said around a breathless laugh, allowing himself to be led away from the mounts by the eager little girl hanging on his arm. "It was calling, craving ears, keeping secrets in the cold behind Skyhold."

Idunna lit up, grinning up at the boy she held so firmly in her grasp. "And you got told them? Will you tell me?"

"The ones that are mine now to tell, yes. Some I heard but didn't mean to hear. I said I was sorry and they understood. Made me promise to keep them in the dark."

"Then you can keep those," Idunna magnanimously announced, "and tell me all the others. Come! Let's see if Cookie has made sweet beans."

"He has," said Cole, a smile in his voice. "He did. I told him you were coming."

Idunna made a high-pitched noise not unlike the mewl of a kitten, hugging Cole's arm as they drifted away from the throng.

Aella looked away from the pair and laughed at the baffled expression on Fenris' face, plucking Ricki's reins loose from Enlil's pommel and sliding off of her saddle. "You'd best get used to not knowing what's going on," she said around a laugh--the first sign of amiability she'd shown toward him in days.

Fenris frowned as his feet touched the ground, hands coming up to stroke Ricki's flank. "Who was that? I could not sense him approaching."

"That was Cole," Aella replied, nimble fingers unfastening the hart's bridle and gently taking the bit from Enlil's mouth. The Inquisitor chuckled as the beast worked his jaw and flapped his lips, as though he had only deigned to allow her to ride him and a bridle was a great inconvenience. "He's a spirit. Or at least he used to be."

Peering around Ricki, Fenris asked, "Mages _and_ demons? You play a dangerous game, Inquisitor."

"He isn't a _demon_ ," said Aella, voice dripping with patience. "He's a spirit of _Compassion_. Though I don't suppose you'd be very familiar with the concept, so your ignorance is excused."

This rankled Fenris, and so he didn't follow when Aella led Enlil to the horsemaster, instead handing the reins off to a nearby soldier and heading off in search of Varric. He could do with a game of Wicked Grace or one of Varric's farfetched tales--anything but staying by Aella's side like a lost duckling. He spotted the dwarf heading up a long, free-standing set of stairs and moved to catch up, though he was momentarily startled by the reaction he garnered from the fortress's populace. They parted before him the moment they laid eyes on him, surprise and confusion mingling in their eyes. Many, he noted, looked down toward his hands, apparently searching for a mark similar to Aella's.

"They won't know what to make of you," said a voice to his left, and Fenris spared a glance for the elven healer he'd first woken up to, grunting his acknowledgment.

"Very few people do."

Solas chuckled lowly in his throat, using his staff as a walking stick and gesturing to the fortress itself. "You will find the throne room up those steps," he said, indicating a set of steps much further away from those Fenris was heading toward. "These steps will take you there as well, but you will first traverse the kitchens and the vault, which is presently bereft of any valuables."

Fenris cocked a brow at the man. There was something about his tone that gave him pause; it was almost as if Solas was weighing him as a person and finding him lacking--a laughable thought, coming from a mage. A number of things sprung to the tip of his tongue, but Fenris kept his peace.

For the most part.

"I was not aware that the Inquisitor required a _throne_ ," he drawled, starting up the steps with Solas at his heels.

" _She_ does not. The _Inquisition_ , however, _does_. We have many enemies and precious few allies. If we are to succeed as an organisation, we must at least grant the illusion of power. The Inquisitor takes the throne when she must sit in judgment of our prisoners, of which there have been few."

Scoffing, Fenris climbed the last few steps. "Are you trying to welcome me to the Inquisition, or sell it to me?"

"A little of both, I'm afraid," said Solas with a genteel smile that Fenris knew better than to trust. "As I said, we have very little in the way of trustworthy allies. If you plan to stay, then I fully intend on determining your position with regards to our organisation."

"You mean that you want to curry favour with the Inquisitor," Fenris replied, feeling a frisson of satisfaction at the way that the other elf's expression shuttered. Fenris lifted his chin, defiantly returning the healer's stormy gaze. "Enough. I will come to my own decisions in my own time, _without_ your questionable guidance." So saying, he turned and walked into Skyhold proper, leaving Solas behind in the light of the sun.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, it was not Varric he encountered first, but a scarred Nevarran swordswoman, which only served to further discombobulate Fenris. Everything from her stance to the way she walked spoke of a quiet confidence just short of arrogance--she was skilled, that much Fenris could see, but she had managed to retain her humility. She approached Fenris from the other side of the throne room with her wrist casually over the hilt of her sword, sharp tigers eye gaze seeming to slice Fenris into calculated slivers that made up the whole of himself--perhaps the most efficient, unbiased assessment he'd ever been subjected to. Fenris met her gaze when she stopped three paces before him, surprised to find that he had to look up to do so.

"Who are you?" she asked without preamble, brows faintly furrowed and lips downturned.

"My name is Fenris," he replied with a similar lack of ceremony, unflinching. "The Inquisitor and her forces rescued me on the Storm Coast."

This was apparently not the right thing to say; the swordswoman's puzzled expression soured, pale eyes narrowing. "Fenris, you said. The ex-slave accomplice of the Champion of Kirkwall."

Fenris made a mental note to sew Varric's lips shut at the earliest opportunity. Outwardly, he only lifted his brows, saying, "'Accomplice' makes it sound as though what we did was unjust. I prefer the term 'friend'."

"Cassandra," called a voice before the swordswoman could reply, and she tried to calm the curling of her lip in order to turn her attention to Aella.

"Inquisitor," Cassandra replied with a short incline of the head. "Must you always bring in undesirable strays?"

"It's an unshakable habit, I'm afraid," Aella said with a smile as she closed the distance between them, giving the woman a brief, warm hug.

Cassandra seemed both flustered and pleased with this token of affection, her expression clearing into a small, almost shy smile as she gently patted the Inquisitor's back. "All went as expected, I hope," she murmured when they pulled apart, that same sharp, assessing gaze quickly flickering along the smaller woman's frame.

Aella's smile softened. "No setbacks, no losses. Problems here?"

"None," Cassandra firmly returned, eyes gleaming with a fierce, protective pride.

The Inquisitor grinned, gently squeezing her friend's bicep. "Good. Is Leliana up in the crow's nest?"

"She is," said the swordswoman, inclining her head once more. "She's been waiting for your return. There are missives that require your attention."

Aella's lips twisted into a wry smile. "You surprise me. There are a few new recruits, Cassandra. Would you please find Cullen and sort them? There are quite a few aspiring soldiers, but I think I saw a few that looked a little too weak-kneed for a sword. Cullen will need your guidance if we're to avoid personal disasters on the field. You're much better at figuring out where it is that people will thrive."

Fenris was surprised to see Cassandra's face flush the softest pink, and from the looks of it, the woman was well aware that she was blushing. "He is likely somewhere on the grounds," said Cassandra with a soft cough to clear her throat, eyes darting from Aella to Fenris and back. "If you'll excuse me."

"Of course," said Aella, smiling as Cassandra ducked away into the mill of people threading through the throne room. As soon as the swordswoman was safely out of earshot, the Inquisitor turned her smile Fenris' way and all but shoved him into what appeared to be a study. Fenris nearly tripped over his own feet as he stumbled back, startled and blinking down at the Inquisitor with wide eyes. "You'd best stay out of Cassandra's way for the time being," she said without a hint of apology, weaving around Fenris and heading up a flight of stairs nearby.

Fenris frowned, glancing at the door to the throne room before giving in and following in her wake. "You are very good at diverting unwanted attention," he noted, voice carefully neutral.

Above him, Aella snorted. "Perhaps you've forgotten your grooming," she said, bootfalls softly echoing in the staircase around them. "Or perhaps Danarius didn't teach you as he did me."

Spiders of sensation crawled up Fenris' arms and down his spine, and he had to take a deep breath before he could speak again. "He used me to intimidate his guests. I was to remain quiet and subservient to him unless specifically addressed."

Aella rumbled her acknowledgment. "I was groomed differently, in a fashion similar to that of the Orlesian Game, though with the subtlety of Tevinter. I was taught to read my targets, find loopholes in conversation, stroke egos, and steer unwanted conversational partners away from Danarius. Everyone was usually ready to indulge the pet of one of the most powerful mages in the Imperium. They compared me to you, you know. They said I was much preferable to the 'dark, brooding savage' he'd previously owned. They seemed to forget that I was just as capable as you were of tearing their throats out, but apparently if you slap a pair of tits on a lyrium slave and make it play nice, it's suddenly harmless."

The fury that had been building in Fenris gave way to shock, and he would deny to the end of his days the fact that he came very close to sprawling headfirst onto the next few steps, hastily catching himself with a hand against the wall. When he lifted his head to look up toward Aella, he found that she had stopped in the middle of the staircase and was looking down at him with mirth in her eyes, lips curved upwards at the corners.

"Are you coming?" she lightly called, lifting a brow.

Fenris coughed a laugh despite himself. "Do I have a choice?"

"Oh, there are always choices," said the Inquisitor, turning to step onto the second flight of stairs that trickled quiet voices down toward them. "Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. I could have chosen to cut Danarius' throat at any given moment, but I chose not to. Because I was afraid of the unknown. Because I was afraid of death."

"And now?" asked Fenris, hurrying to follow her up the remaining steps.

The Inquisitor grimaced, eyes on the ceiling as though she could look through it. "Now, I'm afraid of politics."


	4. Rooks and Pawns

Fenris now understood clearly what Cassandra meant by Aella's penchant for picking up the most unwanted. First it was the demon named 'Cole', and now it was a Maleficar in her own library, whom Aella greeted warmly and with kisses to either cheek. "Have you had any luck?" she asked the moustachioed man, having to tip her head back to look up into his eyes.

"None whatsoever," the man glibly replied, grinning down at Aella and taking hold of both of her hands to kiss her knuckles. "Always a sight for sore eyes, _mellita_. Have you greeted anyone else yet, or did you scamper your pretty little feet right to me? The rumour mill spins so _relentlessly_ when it comes to the two of us, you know. You really _must_ be careful."

Aella snorted, amused. "As if I gave two _shits_ about the rumour mill, Dorian, when you know damned well that you like to spin it like a wheel at every opportunity." Dorian barked a laugh, throwing his head back with mirth as the Inquisitor smiled up at the mage, fluttering her lashes. "But I'm glad to hear that you think my feet are pretty."

"You realise I haven't seen them properly? I couldn't possibly give you a solid opinion without evidence," Dorian said around what wanted to be chuckles, eyes creased.

Aella pulled one hand from Dorian's and set it on her chest, looking somewhere between impish and scandalised. "Are you suggesting I disrobe my _feet_ for you, Dorian?" she asked in _sotto voce_ , as if this were something so risque that she couldn't risk being overheard. "In _public?_ And you haven't even bought me a drink first."

"You don't _drink!"_ Dorian spluttered.

"It's the _principle_ of the thing," Aella replied with a sniff, somehow managing to look down along her nose at him.

Dorian pulled away from the Inquisitor to cross his arms over his chest, one corner of his mouth curling up into a wry smirk. "You're using me to avoid your responsibilities again, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Aella, eyes going wide and guileless. "Can't I come and say hello to my dearest friend after being away for a fortnight? Can't I come and tell you that I missed you?"

"I'm sorry," said Dorian, lifting his brows, "you'll have to repeat that. All I heard was the sound of your lips smacking against my bum."

"Were they smacking fast enough?" Aella wheedled, clasping her hands behind her back. "There's quite a lot of area to cover."

Snorting, Dorian flicked his fingers dismissively, all but shooing her away. "Go on. Off with you. I won't have you speaking ill of my posterior."

"Who said that I was speaking ill?" asked Aella, grinning as she turned and headed back for the staircase. "Come along, Fenris."

Fenris looked up from the stack of books that had caught his attention near one of the windows, carefully closing one of the many fragile, mildewing volumes. He doubted very much that they had been originally from the fortress, since the cold tended to preserve books, but from the looks of the pages of parchment and the pot of ink on the table nearby, someone was working on transcribing them into fresh tomes. He lifted his brows and wandered up toward the Inquisitor, drawling, "I'm not an errant pup."

Aella hummed noncommittally, pushing her hair away from her face. "No, but your eyes do 'puppy' so well, and you weren't where I wanted you."

Fenris scoffed and grudgingly followed the Inquisitor, pausing only when Dorian called out to her.

"Aella?"

The Inquisitor stopped and looked back toward Dorian, expression open and curious. When Dorian pointedly lifted his brows, she made a soft little noise in the back of her throat, smiling and calling, "Tonight? I'm about to meet Leliana about some 'important missives' that 'require my attention'."

Dorian chuckled lowly, shifting his weight onto his hip. "I take it you'll be neck deep in whinging bureaucrats and simpering nobles until you've run out of birds to chuck into the night." When Aella choked on her laughter, he grinned, entirely unrepentant. "I don't envy you."

"No, I don't imagine you do," said the Inquisitor in dulcet tones, eyes bright. "You're much more hands-on with your approach to simpering nobles."

"Oh, unashamedly so," Dorian shot back, a wicked gleam in his eyes. "If you run out of ways to convey your apoplexy, darling, you can always call on me to inspire you. I've been known to be creative in the face of fathomless ignorance."

"I'll keep that in mind," called the Inquisitor, warm affection in her voice. "One of these days, I'll have to name you my chief advisor."

"Ooh, yes, _do_ ," Dorian cooed, heading back toward the shelves. "But make sure to warn me beforehand. I need ample time to find the best seat for when your watchdogs froth at the mouth and clutch their proverbial pearls."

Aella laughed easily, eyes creasing and lips pulling back to reveal her teeth. "Tonight, Dorian," she repeated, shaking her head. "In my chambers. Bring wine."

"Red or white?" Dorian distractedly called, squinting at a nearly-illegible title on a book's spine.

"A cream white, I think. I'll bring _sfogliatella_."

Dorian paused in his inspection of the book in his hands, and though he tried to seem as disinterested as possible, he was very clearly hopeful when he asked, "And chocolate? Since we're already being so _very_ bad."

"And chocolate," Aella confirmed, smirking as she turned to head up the stairs.

"I would have imagined that the Inquisitor would need to practice _discretion_ in these matters," Fenris bit out when they were up on the second flight, eliciting a prompting hum from the woman in question. "You speak so openly about bedding a blood mage. Is that not bad for the Inquisition's publicity, or are _exceptions_ made for the Tevinter Imperium in matters of _'politics'?"_

Without warning, Aella turned on her heel like a soldier on the steps above him, causing Fenris to jerk back to keep from ramming his face into her chest. "If I weren't entirely amused by the preposterous notion of sleeping with Dorian, of all people," she said in a careful, almost monotonous voice, "I would probably punch you right in the teeth for speaking to me in such a way. Dorian is a mage from Tevinter. He is not a Magister, nor is he a Maleficar, and you will treat him with respect for the duration of your stay within the Inquisition, however long or brief that may be. Is that clear?"

"I will treat him with the respect he deserves," Fenris flatly replied, looking up into violet eyes that were sharp and cold.

"Dorian is a greater man than you will _ever_ be," Aella hissed, turning back around and striding up the stairs two at a time.

The rookery was both what Fenris had imagined and nothing like what he'd expected, thick with hooded figures conversing in hushed tones and poring over maps studded with pins of different clusters of colours, coloured strings weaving across them in a complicated web that Fenris didn't hope to understand. As he made a slow circuit of the room, Aella moved to a figure swathed in colours differing from the rest--the mistress, Fenris surmised, of these spies. They spoke in voices too low for Fenris to hear, but he busied himself with other things, admiring the shining plumage of the many ravens and crows that called the rookery home.

Some of the spies, he noted, were being tutored by their seniors--more experienced spies that watched them closely as they penned responses to letters or ran calculations, giving gentle suggestions and not-so-gentle scoldings when the trainee bungled things up more spectacularly than usual.

"Read that out to me," said one such tutor, crossing one leg over the other and folding her arms across her chest as she leaned on the edge of the table.

"Er, right," said her underling, squinting at his penmanship in the sunlight. "It says, 'To whom it may concern'--"

The tutor tutted with impatience, rolling her eyes. "No it doesn't."

"What?" blurted her student, blinking up at his teacher guilelessly.

"What you wrote. It doesn't say 'to whom it may concern', it says 'to who may concerning this'! What the fuck's 'may concerning this' supposed to be? Come on. Again."

"Um," said the younger spy, eyes owlishly wide.

A sharp rap to the desk silenced him, drawing attention back to the parchment in question. "And here. 'You go'. 'You _go'?_ It's an _order_ , not a suggestion!"

"But--But you said--"

"I know what I said! Use the imperative! Conjugate the verb!"

"Yes, ma'am!" cried the trainee, nearly spilling his inkpot in his haste to scratch out the wrongdoings. "Right away, sir!"

The senior spy's snort of disgust masked Fenris' own puff of amusement, though he was warily eyeing a rather large raven that seemed to be scuttling his way, croaking softly and cocking its head to get a better look at his armour. He took a step away from the perch, much to the corvid's irritation, and he couldn't help but smirk at the crafty bird. Nice try.

Peals of girlish laughter pulled his attention away from the birds and back to Aella and who he only assumed could be Leliana, brows lifting as he watched the spymistress point to one of the many parchments laid before the Inquisitor at a desk near the window. "He really is full of himself, isn't he?" Aella was saying around her giggles, grinning up at Leliana.

Leliana smiled back down at her, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Excessively so. But we can use it to our advantage. Perhaps present a more fragile, delicate side of our lady Inquisitor--someone who admires his greatness and would secretly need protecting. He would very much like to fancy himself as the hero of a great romance."

Aella grimaced. "So long as he doesn't take the 'romance' too seriously. He's definitely not my type."

She may as well have dangled a toy before a cat, Leliana's eyes lit up so. "You have a _type?"_ she asked, perching beside the Inquisitor with an eager little smile.

Aella snorted, hooking her ankles and tucking them beneath her chair with the air of a practised lady. "Many people have types. Do _you?"_

"Only one," the Bard replied, smiling impishly. "But we are not here to discuss my love life. You've been here for months. Has no one caught your eye?"

"Several, and both eyes to boot. But we're not here to discuss my love life, either. That's not the interrogation that I have planned."

Leliana's brows lifted with surprise, blue eyes darting to the suddenly skittish-looking elf over yonder even as she prompted, "No?"

"No. I see you've spotted him. His name is Fenris. Yes, _that_ Fenris. Go say hello while I write back to these insufferable nobles."

"With pleasure," Leliana said around a laugh, swiveling out of her seat to follow Fenris down the stairs.


	5. Pulling an Anders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life, as usual, has to make everything Difficult™. Warnings for gore, suicide mention, and Danarius' nasty pasty non-consensual ass.
> 
> Also, before anyone asks, no, Dorian is not straight in this fic nor will he ever be. He and Aella--as he and _every_ Inquisitor--are squishes, which you can read more about [here.](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=squish) Basically, queerplatonic life partners. More than friends, less than lovers, with nothing romantic or sexual between them.
> 
> Fuck outta here with these "what if Dorian's father's spell worked" fics. Ya reprehensible nasties.

The moon was climbing the night sky by the time that Aella finished her 'chores'. She had taken her supper in the rookery with Idunna and Cole, though the boy spent most of his time feeding the crows tidbits and occasionally responding when spoken to rather than eating. She made a stop by the kitchens and crept up to her chambers where she found Idunna again, legs swinging from her chair as she worked by candlelight on her chalkboard. Aella smiled as she closed the door behind her, looking from her daughter to the man sat atop the table, wine in hand. "Started without me?"

"I couldn't very well deny her the chance to learn, now, could I?" asked Dorian, smirking around the lip of his glass.

Aella scoffed, bringing the basket in her arms over to the table. "Have the new ones come in yet?"

"Just yesterday, in fact."

"Good. I was afraid I'd have nothing to work on but reviewing."

Dorian's brows lifted. "You finished the first one? While you were on the _Coast?"_

"In my off moments, yes," said Aella, twisting her hair up into a bun and setting a pastry in front of Idunna. "I managed not to get it sopping wet, which seemed a feat in itself."

The mage chuckled, shaking his head. "Only you would work on a primer in the middle of a war zone."

"What? I was bored. There's only so much nature I can take if it's all drowning."

Dorian chortled and reached into the basket for one of the pieces of fudge that Aella had spirited out of the kitchens, hooking one ankle over the over. "Well, you'll be glad to know that the little miss has had her bath, and that yours is still steaming behind the screens."

"Oh, Maker bless you," whispered Aella, shoulders dropping as she came around to kiss Dorian's cheek. "And may He give you the man of your dreams." Chuckling, Dorian lifted his glass in agreement, shooing Aella away. Idunna smiled up at her mother as Aella kissed her hair, mouth full of pastry and fingers dusty with chalk. The Inquisitor made her way behind the privacy screen of her bedroom and carefully started to strip off her armour, wincing and rubbing her fingers along her shoulder.

She must have made a noise of some sort, because in the next moment Dorian was on the other side of the screens, murmuring, "Is it still very bad?"

"No," Aella replied, smiling as she placed her armour in a neat little pile beside the wooden tub; leave it to Dorian to get his hands on the information she hadn't wanted to be known. "Though perhaps you'd do me the favour of icing the bruises when I come out of the bath? There's still some swelling."

Dorian tutted. "What good is Solas if not for healing? Why didn't you get it cleared up?"

"Because I wasn't the one with bleeding on the brain," Aella demurred, sliding her sleek black bodysuit off and letting it crumple atop her plate. When she stepped into the water, she shuddered and cooed, careful not to allow a drop to spill over the side as she sunk into its delicately scented depths. Mmm, sweet orange and roses. The Inquisitor groaned softly and sank down to her chin, curling up in her tub. "You're too good to me, Dorian."

A half-hearted chuckle came from the other side of the screen, closer now than before; Dorian had chosen to sit beside her tub. "What, exactly, happened on the Storm Coast? You come home all smiles, go upstairs to write letters, and here I have to find out from the mouths of others that you've been hurt--by _Venatori_ , no less." The title was spat out like acid, as though the very word burned a hole in his tongue.

Aella sighed. "You knew we'd gone to investigate reports of Venatori activity," she rejoined in hushed tones, dipping a washcloth into the water and tipping her head back as she draped it over her eyes. "They're not afraid of us, Dorian. They don't scuttle away when they see us approaching. They cast to kill." The Inquisitor swallowed, voice lowering to a low murmur. "They flayed a scout alive. She took the spell for me and I... She was only a girl, Dorian, and I couldn't--"

"Hush," Dorian sharply commanded, though not at all unkindly. There was the sound of shuffling, and then Aella heard his voice behind her on her side of the screen, soft and concerned. "Where is your hand?"

Frowning, the Inquisitor twisted in her tub to look over the edge at Dorian, cloth falling away from her eyes and brows pinching. When she saw that his hand was raised in offering, she pursed her lips to keep them from trembling and lifted a hand from the warm waters, sliding her fingers between his and swallowing thickly when he curled his fingers over her knuckles, firm and sure.

"That girl," Dorian began, looking steadily into Aella's eyes, "gave her life bravely for a cause that she believed in. As we all would. As more of us will, in the days and weeks and months to come in this fight against Coripheus. The weight of her death is not yours to bear. She was murdered by the Venatori. Remember that, _mellita_."

"I know." Aella swallowed again, lashes flickering damply against her cheeks. "I'm trying."

"Try harder, then, would you?" quiped Dorian, gifting her with a half-smile under sad eyes. "You can't go to pieces. You're the head of the Inquisition. At the very least, Josephine would have a conniption under the stress and it'd be a race between Cullen and Cassandra to see who has apoplexy of the brain first."

The Inquisitor giggled damply despite herself, curling against the side of the tub nearest Dorian and bringing their hands to clasp over the edge so that she could lay her brow against their knuckles. "After that girl died, the rest was chaos," she murmured, closing her eyes and casting her mind back several days. "There were explosions everywhere, and so much yelling, and all of it made static like just before lightning because of the sound of the rain. Fighting in the rain is bad enough. Fighting on the _Coast_..."

Dorian made a low, understanding hum, and Aella felt gentle fingers stirring the hair at the back of her head.

"At least the sand was wet and packed. But where the rocks weren't slippery, they were jagged. A recruit managed to slit his own throat falling amongst them. He bled out before anyone noticed. I lost my hearing in one ear after the shock of a spell hit me."

"Mm?" rumbled Dorian, fingers moving from her scalp to her jaw. "Which one?"

"This one," murmured Aella, bringing her free hand up to touch her right ear.

Dorian's fingers immediately went to rub on the pointed tip of that ear, and the Inquisitor purred a little sigh. "Did Solas manage to heal that, at least?"

"Mm-mn. Not Solas. Idunna. She noticed first, when it was all over. I didn't hear her when she called for me, and she saw the blood down the side of my neck."

The mage before her sighed a long-suffering sigh--the sound he made when he was exasperated with Aella's company. "Do you remember the sort of spell that hit you?" he asked, concern firmly trouncing any sort of witty retort he might have made.

"Do I look that bad?" asked the Inquisitor, tone almost hopeful.

Dorian scoffed. "You look like the entire Storm Coast fell on your back."

Aella deflated, grunting, " _Fuck_."

"Yes," Dorian chuckled, carefully ghosting his fingers over the blackened skin on her back. "You _rode_ here like this?"

"Yes."

"You're an idiot."

"Usually."

"They might have damaged your kidneys."

"Oh, and here I thought the burning when I wee'd was because of all the wanton sex we don't have."

" _Aella_."

" _What?_ " the Inquisitor whined, bumping her head against their knuckles. "This is how I cope. And that _does_ happen."

Dorian blinked at the back of the Inquisitor's head. "What?"

"If you have a vagina and don't pee after, you can get an infection."

"I didn't need to know that."

"Yes you did. Now you can spread wisdom, as you so love to do. Iron Bull knew."

Dorian squinted. "How do you know what The Iron Bull knows?"

"We had a discussion. It was after we saw the dragon fighting the giant on the Coast."

The squint shifted into a frown. "I can't tell if you're high or unhinged. Did you hit your head? Swallow any questionable fungi?"

Aella lifted her head to scowl at Dorian. "We saw a dragon fighting a giant on the Coast. Ask anyone who went."

Dorian waved a hand dismissively. "How did that circle around to peeing after you have sex?"

The Inquisitor snorted a laugh and waggled her brows up at Dorian, saying, "Qunari _really_ like dragons."

It might have been worth being slammed against the rocks for the way Dorian startled into laughter, throwing his head back with mirth and chuckling even when he moved to run his hand over Aella's back. "You know I'm awful at sustaining healing spells," he cautioned, smile morphing into a small frown of concentration and concern as his magic showed him where the Inquisitor was hurt. "I can heal the worst of it, but there will be some left over."

Aella sighed softly and relaxed against the tub again, closing her eyes and basking in the sparkling tingles that ran deep and warm through her body. "Whatever you can do will help _immensely_ ," she mumbled in return, nuzzling against Dorian's fingers. There had been an instant chemistry between them when they'd first met--one that they both knew was neither romantic nor sexual in nature, nor would it ever be. Still, most folk forgot that love in the platonic sense could be just as strong as any other, and in the past few months, they had become thick as thieves, anchors in one another's maelstroms. Everything was quiet, with Dorian. With him, Aella could just _be_ , with no pressures or obligations, with no flirtatious dancing, with nothing holding them together but their deep affection for one another.

That, and the man ran _heavenly_ baths.

Aella allowed herself to sink deep into the smell of sweet oranges and roses, to curl into the gently flowery musk of Dorian's personal scent, and to be lulled by the sounds of a crackling fire and Idunna yawning between her chalk strokes. She melted into the soft fizzing of healing magic that sang across the patterns on her bones, and the wood of the edge of the tub against her brow, and the water she was nestled in, warm as the womb. She was safe. Idunna was safe. Skyhold was safe. There would be no fires tonight. No blood. No howls of the wounded and the dying. She could just...

 _Relax_.

"Does the smell offend you so much?"

Aella lifted her head, insides shifting in that odd, almost pleasant way that they always did when she met Danarius' gaze, swallowing thickly against the cloying stench of incense and fetid bodily fluids. "Yes," she replied, waiting for a pause in the noise of the room to do so.

Danarius chuckled darkly, shedding his gloves and setting them on the tray he kept by the table. It was a simple thing, the table--a stone slab with raised edges to prevent the sample from falling over either side, and intricately grooved to collect blood in a pitcher enchanted to keep it fresh. Danarius moved to come around to her side of the table, nearest to the stone steps that led up to the main floor of the manor. "Pray tell, why, then, have you come?"

"I have something important to tell you," she replied, lashes flickering as Danarius lifted a hand to cup her chin.

Curiosity sparked in the depths of his familiar, silver eyes. "Oh?"

Aella nodded, trying to ignore the sensation of Danarius' fingers idly caressing her jaw. "I'm pregnant."

Curiosity was immediately swallowed by the flames of triumph, giving those steely eyes a sharp edge. " _Are_ you, now?"

"I am. Xenia just confirmed it."

Danarius smiled--a questionable reproduction of tenderness that might have fooled a weaker mind. Aella could see the blades hidden behind the benefaction, and she was careful not to fall headfirst into them as Danarius gently pulled her into a kiss, eyes slipping shut as he expected them to, hands politely at her sides so that she would not sully her palms with blood by placing them at his chest as usually required. His kiss was the same as it always was outside of the bedroom: firm and controlling without being visibly oppressive to anyone who might be looking on, but with just enough dark promise in the graze of his teeth along her lip to continuously remind her of her place without words. He never kissed her with tongue in comparative public--that was strictly for the bedroom, as was every other form of overt invasion of her person.

Which was the cause, of course, of her current predicament.

Aella swallowed bile as she tilted her head to accept the slant of Danarius' lips, feeling him shift against her as he stripped off the oiled robe he wore over his usual attire. He wanted her to touch him. She waited until he allowed her to--until he was still, and any movement on her part would not interrupt him. She placed her hands upon his chest, fingers settling beneath his collar bones. He wrapped one arm around her, tugging her closer, the fingers of his other hand splaying possessively over her stomach. And then digging _into_ it.

The kiss broke as Aella choked on her breath, pain bringing tears to her eyes as they flew open to look, uncomprehending, up into Danarius' face. (She had done everything right. _Why?)_ But all that stared back at her was an impassive slate, eyes dark and boring, unfeeling, into her own. "Master," she gasped, hands hardly daring to tighten on Danarius' robes as his fingers surpassed her clothing--as they sank into her flesh as though her body was little more than fresh-churned butter. She could feel him moving inside her in the most terrible of ways, fingers digging and searching, nails scraping along her spine and tearing the bottoms out of her lungs as blood poured into them and out through her mouth--as it ran down Danarius' sleeve and dripped onto the floor between them. "Master, please."

"She will be mine," was all that Danarius said, as if she wasn't dying in his arms, as if he wasn't killing her in cold blood.

Terror flooded into Aella's heart like the red that was bubbling and burning up into chest and running from her nose. "No," she breathed with the air at the top of her lungs, squeezing it out until there was nothing left. "No, please. _Please_."

"You can take her as far away from me as you please," he murmured in that same, terrible voice, chiding and patronising as if she were little more than a mongrel that had to be brought to heel, his fingers clenching tight around the core of her--around where Idunna was growing, where her daughter's life was only just beginning to flicker and burn. "She will _always_ be _mine_."

**_"No!"_ **

White light flashed bright and burning around her like a rising wave, and the sound of splintering wood came to her ears, along with the shrill scream of a child and the cry of a man's voice. He was killing her--killing Idunna--and Aella was killing him back, and this was good, this was good, this was necessary and right and it was _justice_ \--

_"Mellita!"_

Like a slap across the face, Aella recoiled from what could only have been the voice of Dorian, and suddenly everything was warped and wrong, and as the glow faded and the lyrium brought her back down onto the wet, jagged floor of her bedroom, Aella finally saw her surroundings for what they were. The tub was in splinters around her, water creeping across the floor and staining the parchment-like paper of the tatters left of the privacy screen that was in a heap as if torn apart by a maelstrom. The floor was gouged deep as if some terrible beast had gone mad and tried to dig its way out through the stone, and parts of it were still smoking where the water hadn't touched. Across the room stood Dorian, bleeding from a gash along his arm and clutching Idunna close against him, fear bright in her daughter's eyes.

Aella felt as though her lungs had truly collapsed in that moment, sickness roiling in her stomach threatening to spill up and out. She sucked in harsh, ragged breaths and curled in on herself with an anguished moan, arms curling over her head. _Monster_ she was a _monster_. Could have killed them both, could have turned them to _smears_ and where would she be? What would she do? Kill herself, of course, she'd kill herself in the only way she deserved to die--painfully.

" _Mammam_ ," came the softest little whimper, and Aella flinched, curling tighter into herself as Idunna's tiny hands swept across her back, fear and desperation making the girl's voice tremble. " _Mammam_ , it's okay. It was just a dream. You say that, _Mammam_. You say that dreams can't hurt you, _Mammam_. It's okay."

But they could hurt Idunna.

Aella sniffled and slowly uncurled, gathering her frightened child against her chest and pressing desperate kisses to the top of her head. Idunna clung to her mother and clumsily stroked Aella's back, continuing her mantra of, "It's okay. It's okay, _Mammam_ , it's okay."

Dorian was next to approach, pushing rubble aside with his foot as he came and healing the wound on his arm with the same efficiency and determination with which he strode toward Aella. He crouched the moment that he was before her, and this time, when a man reached up to cup her chin, Aella gratefully sank into the touch instead of fighting not to shrink away. "He can't hurt you anymore," Dorian murmured, voice soft and unyielding all at once, comforting her and giving her no option but belief. "He's dead, and Fenris killed him. He can't hurt you anymore. You, or Idunna."

It was like a dam giving way, and instead of blood choking her, this time it was her own tears, falling hot and unchecked down her cheeks as she sobbed, helpless and trembling like a leaf in the wind. Aella nodded and reached up to wrap her fingers around Dorian's wrist, sucking in shaking breaths as her expression crumpled.

"Don't," said Dorian, taking the apology from the tip of her tongue and tossing it aside. "Do not _ever_ apologise to me for the wrongs that have been done to you. Not now. Not ever." He waited for Aella to nod again, and he nodded back, leaning in to press a kiss to her brow. "Come, darling. I'll get you some tea."


	6. There Must Always Be A Warden At Skyhold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might finish this story in 196 years. (I'm trying. I'm sorry.) Also, fair warning, it's gonna be Cole/Inky for a bit but endgame is Fenris/Inky, I promise.

Days later, Fenris chose to take his morning stroll along the fortress' ramparts, and for a moment, he wondered if this was what the Maker saw from his place beside Andraste. To one side, he saw a vast, seemingly never-ending mountain range full of snow-capped behemoths that were born long before the creatures of the earth were born, and who would likely be standing long after the last creature passed into the beyond and joined Him. To the other, a stirring city held in stone like the talons of a great beast, its heartbeat in the breaths of every person nestled safely in its hold. Already, troops were running through drills below, breaths misting in the cold, crisp air of the early morning as shields crashed and wooden practice swords--carefully hewn to mimic the same heft and length of a blade of steel--clattered and clacked.

Among them, he noted, was a head of pure white.

Even from his height, Fenris clearly heard Aella swear in Tevene as the sword was knocked out of her hand. The corners of his lips curled up despite himself. He watched as the Inquisitor picked up the wooden blade and shook her head, and he leaned forward to catch the end of her reprimand.

"--eed you to _disarm_ me," she was saying, voice even but firm. "I need you to come at me with the intent to _kill_ me."

The soldier that had done the disarming, he saw, bobbed a nervous little nod, though his words went against his body language. "But," he said, and Fenris had to strain to hear him. "My lady..."

Aella shook her head. "I'm as much a lady as you are a prince," she said, and the soldier before her made an odd, choked noise as his face spasmed; he hadn't known whether or not he should laugh, and the poor boy was going red at having betrayed himself so. Before he could embarrass himself further, Aella struck her practice sword against the buckler held in the opposite fist. "Come on, then," she called, taking up a defensive position. "Come at me."

Having nothing more pressing to do, Fenris slid himself into one of the embrasures of the parapet he had been leaning over, sitting on the merlon to one side as he unfastened his sword and swung it down from his back. He brought his legs up onto the merlon before him and nestled his sword's hilt between his stomach and leg, letting the crossguard rest on the inside of the elbow of the arm he draped carelessly over his thigh. His other arm, he kept locked behind him, propping him up as he watched the drills unfold beneath him.

She wasn't bad, Fenris saw, but she wasn't good, either. The Inquisitor held herself too stiffly when handling the sword, and though she appeared to notice and tried to correct herself whenever possible, the rigidity inevitably returned and left her moving as though she were only swinging about a stick. True, he reasoned, easing an apple out of the small pouch fastened at his belt, she was probably used to fighting with her staff, which was, in essence, a very large stick.

As he watched, a bearded man approached the Inquisitor, inclining his head in deference to Aella as she stepped, panting, away from the soldier with whom she had been sparring. He held out a hand, bidding the young man to stand down, perhaps, but Fenris saw that his assumption was wrong. He was not stopping the fight. He was taking it over. He took the proffered sword--a steel sword, a real sword--from the soldier and beckoned Aella away from the others, and he spoke, voice low and authoritative, picking out the same flaws that Fenris saw and more.

Aella coloured but grinned, happy to be chastised, happy to be corrected, her own steel sword replacing the wooden plaything of before.

When the fight resumed, he was careful but relentless, and he and Aella danced about one another, swords clashing and steel hissing as blades ground and slid together. Overhand, underhand, backhand, thrust, parry, reverse--he barked them all at Aella, leaving the Inquisitor no choice but to obey. Scrambling and clumsy at first, and then something changed. She hardened. He started to push back, forcing her out of the drills and into combat, and though she nearly stumbled, she did not give ground.

That, there, right at that moment. That was the anger that Fenris was so used to feeling course through his own veins--an anger borne of hatred and kindled by spite. He could see it in the way the Inquisitor bared her teeth, if not by the way her body held without buckling under another devastating swing. She was still not good. But perhaps she would be good enough to survive.

Fenris wiped the apple juice from his chin and shifted to let one leg dangle off of the edge of the parapet, closely watching the duel. This was apparently enough to distract Aella, eyes flickering up to the dark smudge of movement she had registered at the edge of her vision. The swordsman stopped mid-swing, body taut as a bowstring, blade inches from Aella's side. She had looked back only barely in time, buckler sparking against the sword almost uselessly. He knew--they all knew--that if the swordsman had been serious--if this had been a fight to the death--the Inquisitor would have been cleaved almost in two.

The swordsman stepped back and neatly sheathed his sword, calling an end to the practice.

Aella, sweating freely despite the chill air of the mountains, nodded and followed suit, removing her sword belt and carefully handing sword, belt, and buckler to a nearby soldier. Her eyes cut sharply up to Fenris and he paused for an infinitesimal moment, teeth poised against the skin of the apple in his hand, but then he bit through it, chewing as he returned her gaze. He didn't understand the look in her eyes--angry, panicked, afraid--and he understood it even less when she turned on her heel and strode quickly across the courtyard and up into the keep.

 

* * *

  
He saw her again mid-afternoon.

He stepped out of the keep, irritable and fond all at once, coin purse lighter than it had any right to be. He was rusty at playing Wicked Grace and he suspected that Varric drew out the games on purpose, but Fenris found that he didn't mind. He had missed the spectacularly hairy man more than he cared to admit. They talked about Hawke and Aveline, Merril and Sebastian, Isabela and that damnable Anders. Of course Varric had been keeping track of them. Fenris is surprised that he is surprised.

They spoke of Varric's new book, of the Inquisition's forces--"Bearded fella, black hair, face that looks like he stepped in horse shit? That'd be Blackwall." A Warden, he explained, and Fenris was nodding before he realised it. Some people just looked like Wardens; they gazed about them as though everything were fragile and tenuous, as though at any given moment, the world could crumble down around them all. Peace was only temporary. The things that stirred in the depths of the world never stayed put for long. Another Blight was coming. It was only a matter of time.

He heard the meaty _'thok!'_ before he could see what had made the sound. Frowning, he made his way down the steps, sweeping his gaze about and nearly startling when he caught sight of The Iron Bull through an archway in the stone. But it was not the Qunari that had made the sound. He was on the ground performing push-ups, quietly counting off from two hundred seventy-three, and there was a small, brown and blue bundle on the small of his back.

Idunna, he realised, knees tucked beneath her chin and arms around her shins. She was looking away from him, to a point behind the stone wall, and she stirred and smiled when another _'thok!'_ sounded from nearby.

"You're throwing too low," said a quiet voice, and Fenris frowned as he tried to place it. It was the boy from before--the boy from the gates, Idunna's friend, the "spirit". Fenris rounded the corner and saw that he was right. Cole was crouched halfway between Aella and a series of wooden targets, peering up at Aella from behind a curtain of wispy blonde hair, eyes too pale, too blue. "You're still tense."

"An occupational hazard, I'm afraid," Aella easily replied, though she didn't take her eyes off of the targets, face curiously blank. She reached for another knife from the thin table beside her, spinning it deftly across her fingers and pinching the blade between her thumb and the first knuckle of her index. She had been practicing this longer than the sword-fighting, Fenris could tell, but she had yet to master it. She rolled her head along her shoulders and took a deep breath, arm lifting, wrist flicking back.

"He can't hurt you," Cole murmured, sudden and melancholy.

Her throw went wide. The knife barely glanced the edge of the target she was aiming for, leaving a shallow nick in the soft wood, and when she rounded on Cole, her eyes were thunderous. "We talked about this," she said in clipped tones, voice neither soft nor loud.

"He can't," Cole insisted, and he sounded frustrated, pained. "The lyrium, it cleanses too harshly, scrubs raw what it shouldn't. The ones it kills are dead for good, turned to ashes too fine for the Fade."

Aella's breaths hitched, her hand clenching into a fist on the table before her. "Stop it," she murmured, and now she was dangerously close to crumbling. "Stop talking. Stop digging. Not now. Please."

Cole stared up at her for a long moment, eyes too sad and too deep for a face so young. "Not now," he lamented, softly, so softly. And then he was gone--flickered away like a blink.

The Inquisitor was in the process of slumping when Fenris took a step back, alarmed by the disappearance of the young man, and stepped back against the wall, his armour scraping unpleasantly across the stones. She jumped, startled, and looked up at Fenris, eyes wide. Then they narrowed and she _did_ slump, muttering, "Of course it's you."

Fenris scowled. "Where has the boy gone?"

"He's in the Between." It was Idunna, gazing up at him with intelligent silver eyes, idly toying with a little blue ribbon on her dress.

His scowl deepened. "And where is that?"

"Between," said Idunna with a shrug, and smiled when Bull snorted a laugh beneath her, spluttering through three hundred twelve. "Not here and not the Fade. He's probably still there, watching. He watches a lot."

"Charming," Fenris drawled, and felt his lyrium twinge and flare. He jerked his gaze up, but by then, the warning that Aella's flash had given him had nearly died out on her skin. His nostrils flared and his own lyrium bucked up in retaliation.

They had a battle of wills, blue shimmering from their skin, but Aella's gaze cut to Idunna--saw the concern and anxiety in her daughter's small face--and hers faded first. She closed her eyes and leaned her hands on the table, letting her head hang and her hair fall over her shoulders. She looked tired. "Go away, Fenris," she said, almost too quiet to carry.

Fenris straightened his back and squared his shoulders. "No."

Aella's fingers curled into her palms, nails biting her skin. "It was not a request," she bit out, lifting her head to lock eyes.

Fenris crossed his arms over his chest. Leaned back against the wall in an artfully arranged slouch. He did not look away.

Aella's lip curled next, and she wrapped her hand around the handle of a knife, lifting her arm. Again, Fenris stiffened, thinking she meant to throw it at him, but she turned at the last moment, throwing her knife at the target with something like a snarl.

She did not miss this time.


	7. By The Horns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lullaby that Aella sings in this chapter can be found [at this link here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2xnPSRSSzU). It's been ever-so-slightly adapted for the 'verse.

"Boss."

It was Bull. It could only have been Bull. Aella sighed and almost kept walking, almost made it fully into the garden, but he reached out to take hold of her shoulder, his massive hand gentle.

"Hey," he murmured as she turned, frowning deeply as he took in the tightness around her eyes, the darkness lurking in their depths. "You okay, Boss?"

Aella's eyes flickered shut. She took a deep breath and, knowing he valued honesty, said, "No. I'm not. I keep--I'm having--"

"Nightmares?" he supplied, voice that gentle tone that always got through to her, that always made her see reason. "I understand."

She looked up at him then, and she could see that he did. She brought her hands up to scrub her face--didn't resist when he tucked her against his chest and held her there. She curled herself against him, burrowing against his skin, hiding in his musk and the steady thud-thud-whoosh of the organs in his chest. He waited. She was grateful. "It was Danarius," she whispered at length, and he sighed.

"That fucker," he said, softly and with feeling. Aella laughed damply against his chest and trembled when he stroked along her hair and down her back--made a soft wounded noise when he held her tighter. It was never more or less than this--his unwavering support, his complete understanding. It was what she needed, he said, and she knew it was true. She was grateful that he didn't complicate things, didn't throw sex or feelings into the mix.

"It's worse now that Fenris is here," she murmured, turning her head to nuzzle her cheek against Bull's belt.

Bull hummed his acknowledgment above her, around her. "Stirred up memories."

"Yes," she said, and felt so exhausted; she closed her eyes again. "I wish I could forget. I wish I could have seen him die. Maybe then I would have closure. I don't know."

Another hum. Bull slid his hand from the back of her hair to the side of her head, thumb ghosting along her jaw and gently pushing up her chin. As he watched, she tipped her head back, lashes fluttering over her eyes. He cupped her face and she leaned into his palm as he carefully massaged her skin, breath escaping her in a rush and eyes going lidded. She was as a kitten in his hands, melting against his fingers and basking in his touch. He always seemed to know how to make her relax--how to touch her so that she fell into a dazed sort of trance, breaths evening out until she was almost asleep standing up.

When it ended, it ended slowly, with Bull coaxing her back from the edge of sleep until her eyes cleared and she looked up at him and smiled, tired still but not so ragged at the edges, not nearly so strained. His own smile was soft. Satisfied. He had done right by her. He was pleased. She rocked up onto the balls of her feet and he leaned down to meet her. The kiss she pressed to his cheek was brief, affectionate, and did not linger.

"Thank you," she murmured, settling back down on her feet as his hands gave her back one last stroke before pulling away.

"Any time, Boss," he said, and she knew he meant it.

She took his hand when he made to step away, gave it a brief squeeze and let it go.

 

* * *

  
She spent the rest of the day with Idunna. She took her paperwork and her newest primer into the library, where Idunna sat and drew on scraps of parchment with sticks of charcoal wrapped carefully in twine to keep her fingers clean. Solas was there when Idunna grew restless, offering her picture books that he found wedged in the lower shelves. He sat beside Idunna, across from Aella, and read quietly with the little girl, offering gentle encouragements whenever Idunna stumbled over her words. They ate carefully, mindful of the books, mindful of the pictures.

Soon, Idunna grew tired and Aella gathered her materials and her daughter's, tucking them under one arm and hefting Idunna up with the other. She thanked Solas and retreated to her chambers, where she wiped Idunna down with water from her washing basin and eased the girl into her night dress. Idunna wrapped her arms around her mother's neck as Aella tucked her against her hip, keeping one arm around the girl and using the other to climb up the ladder to the upper level above. This was Idunna's haven, where her bed and trinkets were kept, and it was here that Aella laid her down and tucked a blanket over her daughter's shoulders.

"Sing to me, _Mammam_?" the little girl murmured, eyes blinking soft and slow.

Aella smiled, haloed by the glow of the fire beneath and behind her, her hand gently combing through her daughter's soft hair. "What would you like, _carissima_?"

Now it was Idunna's turn to smile, eyes barely open, and she only said, "The sleepsong."

"Oh, the sleepsong," Aella murmured, nodding sagely as though it were the only logical choice. She chuckled. "Of course." She didn't stop combing Aella's hair, keeping the strokes long and even, meant to coax the child to breathe to its rhythm. Aella tilted her head to look level into her daughter's eyes, and she smiled as she began to sing in Tevene, voice soft and sweet.

 _Lay down your head and I'll sing you a lullaby_  
_Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay_  
_And I'll sing you to sleep and I'll sing you tomorrow_  
_Bless you with love for the road that you go_

 _May you sail fair to the far fields of fortune_  
_With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet_  
_And may you need never to banish misfortune_  
_May you find kindness in all that you meet_

 _May there always be spirits to watch over you_  
_To guide you each step of the way_  
_To guard you and keep you safe from all harm_  
_Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay_

 _May you bring love and may you bring happiness_  
_Be loved in return to the end of your days_  
_Now fall off to sleep, I'm not meaning to keep you_  
_I'll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay_

 _May there always be spirits to watch over you_  
_To guide you each step of the way_  
_To guard you and keep you safe from all harm_  
_Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay_

_Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay..._

Only when Idunna was well and truly asleep did Aella draw back her hand, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to the little girl's brow and silently moving away to the ladder again. When she stepped out of the small closet that it was housed in, a figure moved on her bed and her hand flew to the staff shrunken on her belt, body tense and eyes narrowed.

Bull raised his hands in surrender, and moved to press a finger to his lips.

Aella drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, clipping her staff back into place and shaking her head at Bull. "I hate it when you do that," she muttered, and Bull only grinned.

"I know," he quietly replied, leaning back with his hands on her bed. "I'm sorry I had to do it. But there's something you need to know."

Brows lifting, Aella made her way over to the bed and sat beside the hulking man, nearly sliding onto his lap from the dip his weight made in the bed. "Is this about the Dreadnought?"

Bull rumbled his assent and his approval, turning his head to look down at her. "It's more about what's going to happen _after_ the Dreadnought."

The icy fingers of dread curled around Aella's heart, but her expression didn't waver. "They're going to come after you, aren't they?"

"Yes," said Bull, and she saw the approval again in his gaze. "There's been a change in the guard rotation. They'll come for me when I'm alone, or at least mostly. I doubt that they'll really try to kill me. It will be less of a hit and more of a formality. Something that leaves no doubt that I'm considered Tal-Vashoth." His own expression changed then, lip curling, nose wrinkling as he growled, "Tal-Va- _fucking_ -shoth."

Aella frowned, bewilderment making her shake her head. "You've acted as a Tal-Vashoth for years. That didn't change you. Neither does this."

Bull scowled down at her, though his anger was not directed at her. "That was just a role. This is my life, as one of those--" He sucked in a breath through his nose to calm himself, to quiet his voice, and the rumble he made then was almost inaudible, but clearly displeased. "I've killed hundreds of Tal-Vashoth in Seheron--bandits, murderers, bastards who turned their back on the Qun!" His expression soured, darkened, and he almost looked away. When he spoke again, after a breath, his voice was low and ever so slightly unsteady. "And now I'm one of them."

" _Bullshit_ ," hissed Aella, reaching out to place a hand on Bull's arm, where his muscles jumped beneath her fingers. "You're a good man."

Bull began to shake his head, something dark flickering in his eye. "Without the Qun to live by--"

" _Hey_ ," she cut in, voice firm and unyielding. "You're a good man. I see it. Your men see it. If the Ben-Hasrath don't, then it's their loss."

Something in Bull's expression quivered, briefly, and if she would have blinked, she would have missed it. "Thanks, Boss," he murmured, and when she smiled, so did he. After a moment, his expression sobered. "Boss," he began, and Aella was attentive once more. "Whatever I miss, whatever I regret... _This_ is where I want to be." He smirked, and some of his familiar, smug mischief came to life in his gaze. "Whenever you need an ass kicked, The Iron Bull is with you."

Aella laughed and nodded as she pulled her hand away to set upon her lap, looking up into Bull's face. "How do you want to catch these bastards?" she asked, unable to reign in her own smirk of anticipation.

Bull chuckled, gently shaking his head. "Oh, no, Boss. We're going to let them catch _me_."

 

* * *

  
When the assassins came, they were ready.

Aella hung over the side of the parapet when Bull threw one of the two over the edge, waving down at the guards that had been startled half out of their wits when a body came crashing down between them. "Sorry!" she calls, unrepentant despite the goggling looks the guards shot up at her. "Don't worry! He's not one of ours!"

"I think that will only worry them more," Bull rumbled, smirking as he crouched and retrieved the knife Aella had thrown into the second assassin.

Aella paused as she righted herself, looking over her shoulder at Bull with a distant, calculating look in her eyes. "Shit," she muttered after a moment, frowning. "They're going to be jumping at shadows now that they know we have traitors among us, aren't they?"

"Yup," Bull replied, wiping her knife along the tunic of the assassin she had felled.

"Leliana?"

"Yup."

"Cullen is going to want to hang himself."

Bull snorted, chuckling, "Yup."

Aella scowled. "Can you say anything other than 'yup'?"

Bull looked up and heaved himself onto his feet, looking into Aella's face and looking far too pleased with himself as he uttered a cheerful, deliberate, "Nope."

"You're an ass," she said, giggling despite herself.

"A very chiseled one," he said with mock-gravity, flipping the knife to offer it to the Inquisitor hilt-first.

Aella made a noise like a sneeze in reverse, snorting and entirely inappropriate. She shook her head and took her knife, sliding it back into her boot. "Incredible."

Bull smirked, but all at once, his expression cleared. "You should probably tell them not to touch the guy's knife. It's probably poisoned."

The Inquisitor cast her eyes to the heavens. "Of course," she muttered, sighing. "Because nothing can ever be as simple as throwing an assassin over the side of the keep."

The smirk flared back to life on Bull's face, a dark sort of amusement glittering in his eye. "Of course not, Boss," he said, moving to slide the other assassin's knife back into its sheath. "That would be too easy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things: Firstly, I am aware that in canon, Bull doesn't trust the Inquisitor not to give up the game to the assassins. But in the game, none of the incarnations have a history of being a former slave who was Tevinter/Orlesian trained to mask and manipulate. I felt that Bull would trust the Inquisitor enough then, simply because he trusted the Inquisitor--and _only_ the Inquisitor--to provide backup in canon in case things got hairy.
> 
> Lastly, I'm aware that the scene I wrote with Bull uses the romance dialogue, but I am Incredibly Bitter™ that the only way that you can truly comfort the man when he's having an acute moral crisis is if you're trying to bone him. The romance dialogue seemed like the sort of thing that any good friend would say, if they understood the situation. So that's why.


End file.
